All good and bad things must come to an end, and so it is in the saga of the lady who said she found a finger in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant in San Jose, CA.
The lady has been arrested. That’s GOOD for Wendy’s, which had sales drop because some customers didn’t want to take a mouthful of food and have it point towards their tonsils. And that’s BAD for comedians and tasteless websites such as The Moderate Voice which had fun at Wendy’s expense with jokes such as:
- When Wendy’s serves finger food, they don’t kid around.
- This gives a new meaning to the phrase “fast food joint.”
- What’s the big deal about getting a finger in Wendy’s chili? Millions of Californians give someone a finger in their cars every day.
But, alas, TMV’s cheap, vulgar jokes ignore a very serious part to this story — the story of corporation taking an undeserved financial hit, a costly search to find the REAL owner of the finger, and the serious issue of people putting in claims that may not be true. The LA Times gives these additional details about the arrest:
The woman who said she found a finger in her bowl of Wendy’s chili last month has been arrested, San Jose police said Thursday.Anna Ayala was arrested at her Las Vegas home Thursday night, police spokesman Enrique Garcia said. He said no further details would be released until a news conference today.
NEWS CONFERENCE. We don’t want to speculate, but having worked in the news media that means: they have a lot of info they’re about to release.
The arrest came hours after Wendy’s ended its investigation into the incident, saying that it could find no link between the finger and the restaurant chain.Ayala told police that she found the finger March 22 while eating at a Wendy’s in San Jose. She said she would sue but then decided against it.
Actually, if it turned out the finger was real, with a little PR Wendy’s could have turned this to their advantage by:
- Turning it into a slogan. “Spend Palm Sunday at Wendy’s…We give you a hand (or part of it) at Wendy’s…Try our new Hand & Cheese Sandwich…Free nail clipper with each serving of our delicious chili!!”
- Having offered a promotion. “Order our chili, collect all five fingers and win a trip to beautiful Oriskiny Falls, New York!”
PS: I absolutely love Wendy’s chili (but I may bring a strainer when I order it next time).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.